Submission Guidelines: The Community Word welcomes submissions of opinion articles on any topic. Submissions should be exclusive to Community Word and should be no longer than 500 words. Authors should submit a brief bio of several sentences to publish with their article. We do not consider anonymous submissions. Send submissions to: communityword@yahoo.com or Community Word, 400 NE Jefferson, #400, Peoria, IL 61603. Community Word also welcomes letters-to-the-editor. Submissions should be no longer than 200 words.

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BY CLARE HOWARD Warthog Wheat stretched to the horizon and chattered in a breeze as storm clouds banked in the distance. Harold Wilken and his son Ross were anxious to get out into the field to start harvesting their organic…

Author Archive for Clare Howard

BY CLARE HOWARD U.S. Rep. Danny Davis imagines his grandson saying, “But Granddad, you said if I’m home, I’m OK. I’m safe. You told me to be home when it’s dark.” Rep. Davis shook his head. “It never occurred to…

BY CLARE HOWARD Glyphosate, the most heavily used weed killer in the United States, was found in 91 percent of pregnant women tested in a recent study conducted by Dr. Paul Winchester, medical director of the neonatal intensive care unit…

BY CLARE HOWARD It’s a “myth” that pesticides are needed to feed the world, a recent United Nations report concludes, calling for an international treaty to regulate and ultimately eliminate widespread pesticide use. The report states that elimination of pesticides…

BY CLARE HOWARD John Parks has no hesitancy labeling himself a conservative, but he’s adamant the current health care system in this country is broken, and the best solution is a single-payer plan providing universal coverage. Parks, 70, has the…

BY CLARE HOWARD As a wave of anti-Semitism sweeps the nation, Peoria’s Holocaust Memorial is being relocated from a shopping mall to the heart of downtown on the southwest corner of Peoria Riverfront Museum. Composed of a series of clear…

BY CLARE HOWARD Amber Pawula-Marcin speaks in a quiet voice, with a gentle smile, but her story roars out against the mantra “repeal and replace.” She has watched, listened and read as Congress spent millions of dollars on largely symbolic…

BY CLARE HOWARD Peoria’s only daily newspaper, once family owned, was purchased by a privately held Japanese conglomerate aiming to become a global telecommunications leader. The sale is expected to close by year-end. SoftBank, owned by Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son,…

BY CLARE HOWARD The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois recently released results of an investigation begun in 2015 into Heartland Health Services and found the Peoria clinics limit birth control availability for many low-income residents in the community, creating…

BY CLARE HOWARD More than 200 people filled the sanctuary at Temple Sholom in Galesburg recently to hear the outreach director from Southern Poverty Law Center talk about the uptick in hate crime since the presidential election, and she recommended…

BY CLARE HOWARD Two medical researchers who arrived at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria in August dream of fighting disease and boosting immunity by restoring balance to the gut microbiome. Long-held assumptions about the human gut…